FemLibs and Freud

As the first baby doctor to blend pediatrics with psychology, Dr. Benjamin Spock infused The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care with Freudian psychoanalytic theory.

Spock recording used with permission from WNYC Archive Collections.

References

• “Add-Ons to Baby and Child Care: Page 285 Sterilizing Bottles.” www.drspock.com/page-285-sterilizing-bottles.
• Bernstein, Joseph. “Back to the Couch with Freud.” The New York Times. 26 March 2023.
• Cooper, D. “Dr. Benjamin Spock.” WNYC. 1 October 1973.
• Ehrenreich, Barbara and Deirdre English. For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women. Doubleday, New York, 1978.
• Gilman, Richard. “The FemLib Case Against Sigmund Freud.” The New York Times, 31 Jan 1971.
• Maier, Thomas. Dr. Spock: An American Life. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998.
• Needleman, Robert and Benjamin Spock. Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, 10th edition. Gallery Books, 2018.
• Roti, Rosemary. “Review: The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Benjamin Spock.” The American Journal of Nursing, vol. 47, no. 2, 1947, pp. 139.
• Spock, Benjamin. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1957.
• ---. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946.
• Spock, Benjamin, M.D. and Mary Morgan. Spock on Spock: A Memoir of Growing Up with the Century. Pantheon Books, 1985.
• Sullivan, James. “Dr. Freud and Dr. Spock.” The Courier, v. 328, pp. 75-89.

Keywords
readability, writing style, pop psychology, popular psychology, freud, freudian, anna freud, sigmund freud, modernism, midcentury, feminism, feminists, mother advice, parenting advice, parent education, virginia woolf, to the lighthouse, psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic theory, psychology, psychotherapy, cbt, talking cure, talk therapy, analyst, analysts, analyst couch, paternalism, carnegie libraries, carnegie library, philanthropy, pediatricians, pediatrics, pediatric psychology, psychiatry, psychiatric residency, pediatrics residency, sando rado, bertram lewin, margaret mead, caroline zachry, laura spelman rockefeller foundation, rockefeller foundation, parenting literature, jane spock, benjamin spock, syphilis, childhood, childhood memories, repression, envy, castration anxiety, thumb suckers, thumb sucking, oral stage, pacifiers, toilet training, potty training, on demand feeding, formula feeding, breast feeding, sexism, sexist, repressed memories, bottle feeding, formula scum

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